Windows 2.x 2.0

Windows 2 changes from Windows 1.x consist mainly of visual improvements. Windows 2 adds overlapping windows, menu keyboard shortcuts, VGA support, and other user interface changes influenced by IBM standards. Windows 2 is the last version that supports installation to a floppy disk, and to be available as an application run-time. Later editions of Windows 2 added support for 286 high memory, and running applications in a 386 VDM. The versioning is a little confusing. 2.x and 2.x/386 were released side-by-side. When it reached 2.1x, the regular 8088 version was renamed to Windows 2.1x/286. This is all unified in Windows 3.0.

For a brief time during the Windows 2.x era, Microsoft considered dropping Windows in favor of OS/2. After a fallout between Microsoft and IBM, development refocused on Windows 3.0 and what would become Windows NT.

Wanted: Supposedly, Microsoft had a beta program manager and file manager for Windows 2 downloadable from their BBS.